I wonder where these sweepings agglomerate into life again. There must be some place where the humble _piou-piou_ buys a cheap ring for his lady-love, some place where the _marchand de coco_ tinkles his bell among the crowd, where the distressful person who earns his living by picking up cigar-ends, now partially ruined by the cigarette craze and the end of snuff-taking, can ply his trade, and the cries of the old-clothes man and the dealer in stale fruit may be heard, some place from which modern ideas will drive them once more into the wilderness; for after all, it must be admitted that the picturesque charms of Petticoat Lane are hardly in harmony with the sedateness of an improving neighbourhood, let alone a great architectural quadrangle separating two palaces, one, alas! now gone for ever. There were other walks—the Jardins des Plantes, the Bois de Boulogne, and so many pleasant expeditions. But what I grew to love most, as the years rolled on, were the quaint old nooks and corners that we used to come upon in remote and unexpected places, remnants of the old Paris of the Trois Mousquetaires—delightful people!—curiously gabled streets where the oil lanterns still swung from wires fastened to the houses on either side, places just fit for rufflers like d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, swaggering hand on hilt; dark, mysterious, labyrinthine quarters, very primitive and no doubt very unhygienic; but then you cannot have everything. One not very judicious outing I remember when I was seven years old, and a sentimental tutor from Demler’s school, to which we were sent, took several of his pupils, myself among them, to the Morgue to see the corpse of a girl who had been murdered—stabbed to death—by her sweetheart. It was a horrid place, that old Morgue, where the dead bodies were laid out naked on marble slabs with a tiny trickle of water playing upon them, like salmon in a fishmonger’s shop, and their poor rags of clothing hung damp, empty and melancholy from the ceiling. The sight almost made me sick and fed me with nightmares for weeks. One of my father’s best friends in Paris was the old Duchesse de Rauzan. She had recently built herself a house at Trouville, on the sands near the mouth of the river. Trouville was then a tiny fishing village. The only other house besides that of the Duchesse was one built close to hers by Doctor, afterwards Sir Joseph, Olliffe, the physician to the English Embassy. The Duchesse was anxious to get a few of her friends to camp for the summer in the fishermen’s cottages and make up a pleasant _coterie_. Amongst others, she persuaded my father to join the party. One day my father had taken me with him to call on the Duchesse, to inquire further before deciding, and as we were sitting there, a footman announced “Monsieur le Docteur Billard.” “What a piece of luck!” said the Duchesse. “Monsieur Billard is the Trouville doctor, so you will be able to ask him all about it.”